4.  The first applicant, born in 1925, was the chief editorial writer of the daily national newspaper Cumhuriyet (“the Republic”) at the material time and lived in Istanbul. The second applicant, born in 1949, was the editor‑in‑chief of the newspaper and lives in Istanbul. The third applicant, a joint‑stock company established under Turkish law with its registered office in Istanbul, is the publisher of Cumhuriyet. The fourth applicant, an association founded in Istanbul, is the owner of the newspaper.
5.  On 27 November 1995 The Guardian newspaper published an article written by Jonathan Rugman entitled “Turkish Islamists aim for power”, based on an interview held with Mr Abdullah Gül, a Member of Parliament (“MP”) for Refah Partisi (“the Welfare Party”) at the material time. The relevant part of the article read as follows:
“Abdullah Gül is dressed in a well-cut suit and tie. The MP may be the deputy leader of Turkey’s Islamic revivalist Welfare Party, Refah, but he speaks good English and seems to have been schooled within the political traditions of the West.
Such is his charm that Mr Gül is often given the task of explaining Welfare’s policies to suspicious foreigners. Yet his message is unmistakably radical, a direct challenge to Turkey’s unique status as the only secular democracy among 52 Muslim countries.
‘This is the end of the republican period’ Mr Gül says flatly, ‘if 60 per cent of Ankara’s population is living in shacks, then the secular system has failed and we definitely want to change it’.”
6.  On 28 November 1995 a Turkish daily newspaper, Posta, reported on the article published in The Guardian with the following headline: “Here is the Welfare Party’s real aim: the chilling confession”. The news piece, which included a copy of the Guardian article and a summary thereof, indicated that Mr Gül had “openly defied the secular system and the republic”.
7.  On 15 December 1995 The Guardian published another article by Jonathan Rugman, headed “Turkey hails customs deal as step nearer EU”, the relevant part of which read as follows:
“The Turkish press was rejoicing yesterday at the European Parliament’s decision to ratify a customs union with Ankara, 22 years after it was initiated.
...
Abdullah Gül, deputy leader of the pro-Islamic Welfare Party, said state prosecutors planned to take him to court because of a Guardian article which quoted him as saying that his party wanted to change Turkey’s secular system.
Mr Gül said that he did not mean to abolish the Turkish republic, simply to end an era of public unhappiness.”
8.  Following the dissolution of the Welfare Party by the Turkish Constitutional Court, Mr Gül played a leading role in the founding of Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (“Justice and Development Party” or “AKP”) in 2001. In November 2002, he formed the 58th Government of the Turkish Republic as Prime Minister, and subsequently served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in the 59th Government from 2003 to 2007.
9.  On 24 April 2007 Mr Gül was named as the AKP candidate for the upcoming Presidential elections.
10.  On 29 April 2007 the daily Cumhuriyet ran an advertisement that headlined the first page, which consisted of the following quote by Mr Gül, printed in white letters against a red background covering approximately one quarter of the page:
“It is the end of the republic in Turkey ... We definitely want to change the secular system −Abdullah Gül.”
The quote was followed by a slogan, “Take care of your Republic”, followed by an inset picture of the newspaper.
11.  It appears that in the following day’s issue, Cumhuriyet published a short article regarding the background of this advertisement, explaining that it was a direct quote from an interview that Mr Gül had given to The Guardian on 27 November 1995.
12.  On 1 May 2007 Cumhuriyet ran the same advertisement, with an identical layout.
13.  On 2 May 2007 another major Turkish daily newspaper, Hürriyet, reported that Jonathan Rugman, the Guardian journalist who had conducted the contentious interview with Mr Gül in 1995, had confirmed that Mr Gül had uttered the statement “we will change the secular system” during the interview.
14.  On 27 April 2007 the first round of the Presidential elections was held at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (“the Parliament”). Mr Gül, the only candidate running for Presidency, failed to receive the requisite qualified majority for election in the first round, which necessitated the holding of a second round.
15.  However, before the second round of elections could be held, the Constitutional Court of Turkey, upon a request from the main opposition party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), annulled the first round of the elections on 1 May 2007 on the ground that the required quorum had not been reached. Subsequent attempts to repeat the first round of the elections proved unsuccessful on account of the failure to meet the necessary quorum due to boycotts from opposition MPs. In view of the deadlock in the Parliament over the election of the President, it was decided on 9 May 2007 to postpone the elections.
16.  As a result of the failure of the Parliament to elect a President, the Parliamentary elections, which were originally scheduled to be held subsequent to the election of the President, were brought forward in accordance with the terms of the now defunct Article 102 of the Turkish Constitution. Accordingly, on 22 July 2007, Parliamentary elections were held, which resulted in the incumbent AKP securing its second term in office.
17.  In August 2007, the newly elected Parliament restarted the Presidential election process. Mr Gül was renominated by his party as President.
18.  On 28 August 2007 Mr Gül was elected by the Parliament as the President of the Republic of Turkey from amongst three candidates.
19.  In the meantime, on 2 May 2007 Mr Gül brought a civil action for compensation against the applicants before the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance, arguing that the fictitious and defamatory statement published in Cumhuriyet on 29 April and 1 May 2007 carried the sole aim of damaging his reputation and thus constituted an attack on his personality rights. He highlighted that following the publication of the impugned article on 27 November 1995, he had informed The Guardian that he had not made the statements published therein, and requested a correction. The said newspaper had accordingly rectified its error in a subsequent article published on 15 December 1995, explaining that Mr Gül had not pronounced upon the “republic” or “secularity” in his interview, but had only referred to the public discontent in a socio-economic context. He claimed that Cumhuriyet itself had acknowledged the inaccuracy of the statement it had published in its issue of 30 April 2007. He further contended that the statement attributed to him did not serve a “public interest” in any event, for it lacked “currency”, and that the publication of such dated news was a further sign of bad faith on the part of Cumhuriyet. Mr Gül requested compensation for non‑pecuniary damage in the amount of 50,000 Turkish liras (TRY) from the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance, as well as an interim injunction against the statement in question. He submitted the relevant copies of Cumhuriyet, as well as a number of Court of Cassation decisions in support of his claim, but not the copies of the Guardian articles in question.
20.  On 5 May 2007 the 25th Chamber of the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance examined the claimant’s request and decided, in the light of the evidence submitted by Mr Gül and without hearing the applicants’ arguments, to grant the interim injunction. The injunction in question was formulated as follows:
“In accordance with Articles 24 and 25 of the Civil Code and Article 103 and the succeeding provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, the publication of the material attributed to the claimant Abdullah Gül, as published on the front page of the newspaper Cumhuriyet in the issues of 29 April 2007 and 1 May 2007, as well as any news that may be subject to the [present] court proceedings, be suspended/prevented as a precautionary measure.”
The court ordered the notification of the injunction decision to the applicants.
21.  On 7 May 2007 the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance held a preliminary hearing in the main compensation proceedings in the absence of the parties, at which it ordered that the claimant’s request and other material submitted by him be communicated to the applicants together with the injunction decision. It also invited the applicants to submit their defence on the merits of the case, along with any objections they might have against the interim injunction, and scheduled the first hearing for 6 June 2007.
22.  On 24 May 2007 the applicants submitted their written defence submissions to the first-instance court, together with a request for the lifting of the interim injunction. The applicants argued, inter alia, that the statement under consideration in the present case was a direct quote from an interview that Mr Gül had given to a journalist from The Guardian on 27 November 1995; that this interview had also been reported in the Turkish daily Posta; that the subsequent article published by The Guardian on 15 December 1995 did not constitute a “correction” as alleged, as it did not entail a denial or retraction of the previous statement; that in a statement he had made to the newspaper Hürriyet, the Guardian journalist Jonathan Rugman had verified that Mr Gül had indeed made the impugned declaration; that the London correspondent of Cumhuriyet had been informed by the foreign affairs editor of The Guardian that there were no correction requests from Mr Gül in their archives in relation to the article of 27 November 1995; and that the article published in Cumhuriyet on 30 April 2007 was an objective account of the background to Mr Gül’s quote, and not an acknowledgment of the inaccuracy of this statement as alleged. The applicants added that contrary to the claimant’s allegations, the statement in question was of great public interest pending the Presidential elections, as the public had the right to be informed about the background and political opinions of Presidential candidates. On the procedural side, the applicants claimed that the interim injunction based on Article 25 of the Civil Code amounted to a “ban” on the publication of the relevant material, whereas Article 26 of the Turkish Constitution only allowed for the “limitation” of the freedom of the press in certain conditions, including for the purposes of the protection of the reputation of others. Moreover, the second part of the injunction, which ordered the suspension/prevention of the publication of “news that might be subject to the court proceedings” in a sweeping manner, was set out in extremely vague terms. It thus had the effect of preventing the publication of any news, articles or commentaries about Mr Gül, thereby granting him quasi-immunity from criticism as a Presidential candidate. For the foregoing reasons, the applicants requested the lifting of the interim injunction.
23.  At the first hearing in the main compensation proceedings held on 6 June 2007, the 25th Chamber of the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance dismissed the applicants’ request for the interim injunction to be lifted without any explanation. According to the information in the case file, the subsequent hearings on 10 July and 23 October 2007 dealt with procedural matters.
24.  On 15 February 2008 Mr Gül instructed his lawyer to withdraw the case from the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance. He stated that although he considered his personality rights to have been violated by reason of the publications in question, he did not deem it appropriate to pursue this case in view of his newly acquired constitutional status as the President of the Republic.
25.  On 27 March 2008 Mr Gül’s lawyer conveyed his client’s request to the first-instance court.
26.  On the same day the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance dismissed the case as requested and lifted the interim injunction effective of that date.